Get your candidates to sign up to our demands for accessible transport
Transport for All
It’s vital that we reach out to candidates from across the political spectrum making it clear just how important transport accessibility is to us...
It’s vital that we reach out to candidates from across the political spectrum making it clear just how important transport accessibility is to us. A powerful way to do this is for you, as a voter, to contact your candidates asking that they sign up to our four demands for accessible transport.
Please send out our template email today – and contact catherine@transportforall.org.uk with any responses you receive.
Click here to download the template letter.
Template letter:
Your name and your contact details
To: Name of the candidate
Date
General Election demands for Accessible Transport
Dear…………
I am writing to you to highlight Transport Accessibility and to ask that you sign up to Transport for All’s four Demands for accessible transport.
Accessible transport offers a lifeline to inclusion for many Disabled and older people. With an aging population accessible transport is becoming increasingly relevant and has major impact on people’s health, employability and quality of life.
There are 13m Disabled people across the UK, who still face a daily struggle to do something as simple as catching the bus.
- Access to Transport is one of the two most common barriers to work for Disabled people
- 18% of Disabled people have had to turn down a job due to inadequate access to transport
- 28% of Disabled people have been unable to undertake training or education
- 48% of Disabled people have missed a hospital appointment
Therefor I am asking that you make four key commitments for accessible transport:
1) Restore deferred Access for All funding and commit to continuing the scheme beyond 2019
Only one in five stations in the UK have step-free access. The shameful decision to defer £50m worth of Access for All funding is a major backwards step for access.
Progress on rail access was already too slow – we need more rail access funding not less!
2) Enshrine the right to access in law
Transport access is a right, and should be directly protected by law. Uphold the recommendations of the House of Lords Equality Committee and enshrine the right to access in UK law.
3) No more rail staff cuts
Disabled and older people depend on visible, available transport staff for advice and assistance. The Government needs to ensure that when train services are franchised, staffing levels are protected so that Disabled and older people can travel with confidence.
4) Strengthen the law around wheelchair priority on buses
Doug Paulley’s legal battle to use his local buses shone a light on how, over twenty years after Disabled people chained themselves to buses to win a wheelchair space, Disabled people are face daily discrimination on the bus.
Wheelchair priority in the wheelchair bay must be protected by law.
Please could you let me know which of these policies you can commit to should you be elected?
Accessible transport benefits everyone, not just the 13m Disabled people who will be voting on June 8th. It would be fantastic to see your party give the issue the priority that it deserves.
Best wishes,
Your signature
